1. Introduction

On the historical and contemporary dimensions of the U.S.-Icelandic military relationship, see Valur Ingimundarson, Í eldlínu kalda stríðsins. Samskipti Íslands og Bandaríkjanna 1945–1960 [In the Crossfire: Icelandic-U.S. Relations 1945–1960] (Reykjavík: Vaka Helgafell, 1996); Ingimundarson, Uppgjör við umheiminn: Samskipti Íslands við Bandaríkin og NATO 1960–1974 [A Reckoning with the Outside World: Iceland’s Relations with the United States and NATO, 1960–1974] (Reykjavík: Vaka Helgafell, 2001), 50–54; Ingimundarson, The Rebellious Ally: Iceland, the United States, and the Politics of Empire, 1945–2006 (Dordrecht and St. Louis: Republic of Letters, 2011); Ingimundarson, “Unarmed sovereignty versus foreign base rights: enforcing the US-Icelandic defence agreement 1951–2021,” The International History Review 44, no. 1 (2022): 73–91; Ingimundarson, “A Fleeting or Permanent Military Presence? The Revival of US Anti-Submarine Operations from Iceland,” RUSI Newsbrief 38, no. 7 (2018): 1–4; Gustav Pétursson, “The Defence Relationship of Iceland and the United States and the Closure of the Keflavík Base,” PhD. diss. (University of Lapland, 2020); Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, “To the Edge of Nowhere?” Naval War College Review 57, no. 3 (2004): 115–137; Michael T. Corgan, Iceland and Its Alliances: Security for a Small State (New York: E. Mellen Press, 2002); Thor Whitehead, The Ally Who Came in from the Cold: A Survey of Icelandic Foreign Policy, 1946–1956 (Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press 1998).

See “Samkomulag Bandaríkjanna og Íslands um aðgerðir til að styrkja varnarsamstarf ríkjanna” [Joint Understanding between the United States and Iceland on Measures to Strengthen the Bilateral Defense Cooperation], October 2006, accessed May 23, 2023, https://​www.​utanrikisraduney​ti.​is/​media/​Frettatilkynning​/​Samkomulag_​um_​varnarmal.​pdf.

On the Icelandic financial crisis, see Ásgeir Jónsson and Hersir Sigurgeirsson, The Icelandic Financial Crisis: A Study into the World’s Smallest Currency Area and its Recovery from Total Banking Collapse (London: Palgrave, 2016); Valur Ingimundarson, Philippe Urfalino, and Irma Erlingsdóttir, eds., Iceland’s Financial Crisis: The Politics of Blame, Protest, and Reconstruction (New York and London: Routledge, 2016); Eiríkur Bergmann, Iceland and the International Financial Crisis: Boom, Bust and Recovery (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Robert Z. Aliber and Gylfi Zoega, eds., Preludes to the Icelandic Financial Crisis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Guðrún Johnsen, Bringing Down the Banking System: Lessons from Iceland (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Ásgeir Jónsson, Why Iceland? How One of the World’s Smallest Countries Became the Meltdown’s Biggest Casualty (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009); E. Paul Durrenberger and Gisli Palsson, eds., Gambling Debt: Iceland’s Rise and Fall in the Global Economy (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2014); Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Hrunið [The Crash] (Reykjavík: JPV, 2009); Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: How the Global Financial Crisis Bankrupted an Entire Country (London: Bloomsbury, 2009).

See U.S. Geological Survey, Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle (Washington, D.C.: U.S. government, 2008), accessed November 15, 2022, https://​pubs.​usgs.​gov/​fs/​2008/​3049/​.

See Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen and Gry Thomasen, “How has Arctic coastal state cooperation affected the Arctic Council?” Marine Policy 122 (2020): 1–7, https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/​j.​marpol.​2020.​104239.

See Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen and Gry Thomasen, “Learning from the Ilulissat Initiative: State Power, Institutional Legitimacy, and Governance in the Arctic Ocean 2007–1” (Centre for Military Studies, University of Copenhagen, 2018), accessed February 9, 2024, https://​cms.​polsci.​ku.​dk/​publikationer/​learning-from-the-ilulissat-iniative/​download/​CMS_​Rapport_​2018_​_​1_​-_​Learning_​from_​the_​Ilulissat_​initiative.​pdf; see also Oran R. Young, “Whither the Arctic? Conflict or cooperation in the circumpolar north,” Polar Record 45, no. 1 (2009): 73–82; “The Ilulissat Declaration” issued by Arctic states at the Arctic Ocean Conference in Ilulissat, Greenland, May 27–29, 2008, accessed February 25, 2024, https://​referenceworks.​brillonline.​com/​entries/​international-law-and-world-order/​ve5-the-ilulissat-declaration-on-the-arctic-ocean-SIM_​032765.

European Parliament Resolution on Arctic governance, October 9, 2008, accessed February 7, 2024, https://​www.​europarl.​europa.​eu/​doceo/​document/​TA-6-2008-0474_​EN.​html.

See Scott G. Borgerson, “Arctic Meltdown: The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (March/April 2008): 63–77; Borgerson, “The Great Game Moves North,” Foreign Affairs, March 25, 2009, accessed September 30, 2022, https://​www.​foreignaffairs.​com/​articles/​commons/​2009-03-25/​great-game-moves-north; Richard Sale and Eugene Potapov, The Scramble for the Arctic (London: Frances Lincoln, 2010); Barry Zellen, Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom (London: Praeger, 2009); Alun Anderson, After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic (New York: Smithsonian Books, 2009); Michael Byers, Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North (Vancouver: Douglas and Mclntyre, 2009); Charles Emmerson, The Future History of the Arctic (London: The Bodley Head, 2010); David Fairhall, Cold Front: Conflict Ahead in Arctic Waters (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2010); Roger Howard, The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow’s Natural Resources (London and New York: Continuum, 2009).

See, for example, Oran R. Young, “The future of the Arctic: cauldron of conflict or zone of peace?” International Affairs 87 no. 1 (2011): 185–193; Klaus Dodds, “The Ilulissat Declaration (2008): The Arctic States, ‘Law of the Sea,’ and Arctic Ocean,” SAIS Review of International Affairs 33, no. 2 (2013): 45–55; Timo Kouvurova, “How to Improve Arctic International Governance,” U.C. Irvine Law Review 8 (2016): 83–98; Hans Corell, “The Arctic: An Opportunity to Cooperate and to Demonstrate Statesmanship,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 42 (2009): 1065–1079; Frédéric Lasserre, Jérôme Le Roy, and Richard Garon, “Is There an Arms Race in the Arctic,” Centre of Military and Strategic Studies, 14, 3–4 (2012): 1–56.

See, for example, “Canada rejects Arctic flag-planting as ‘just a show by Russia’,” The Sidney Morning Herald, August 3, 2007, accessed January 10, 2024, https://​www.​smh.​com.​au/​world/​canada-rejects-arctic-flagplanting-as-just-a-show-by-russia-20070803-r86.​html.

See, for example, Muriel Evelyn Chamberlain, The Scramble for Africa (London, New York: Routledge, 2013); Mieke van der Linden, The Acquisition of Africa (1870–1914): The Nature of International Law (Boston: Brill, 2016); Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, and Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians: The official mind of imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1961).

See Heather Exner-Pirot and Robert Murray, Regional Order in the Arctic: Negotiated Exceptionalism, The Arctic Institute, October 24, 2017, accessed November 15, 2022, 47–63, https://​www.​thearcticinstitu​te.​org/​regional-order-arctic-negotiated-exceptionalism/​; see also Juha Käpylä and Harri Mikkola, “On Arctic Exceptionalism,” The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Working Paper 85 (April 2015), 1–22, accessed July 3, 2023, https://​www.​fiia.​fi/​wp-content/​uploads/​2017/​01/​wp85.​pdf; Juha Käpylä and Harri Mikkola, “Contemporary Arctic Meets World Politics: Rethinking Arctic Exceptionalism in the Age of Uncertainty,” in The Global Arctic Handbook, ed. Matthias Finger and Lassi Heininen, (Cham: Springer, 2019), 153–69; Daria Shvets and Kamrul Hossain, “The Future of Arctic Governance: Broken Hopes for Arctic Exceptionalism,” Current Developments in Arctic Law 10 (2022): 49–63; Pavel Devyatki, “Arctic exceptionalism: a narrative of cooperation and conflict from Gorbachev to Medvedev and Putin.”

Lassi Heininen, Karen Everett, Barbora Padrtova, and Anni Reissell, Arctic policies and strategies—analysis, synthesis, and trends (Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2020); P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Suzanne Lalonde, eds., Breaking the Ice Curtain? Russia, Canada, and Arctic Security in a Changing Circumpolar World (Calgary: Canadian Global Affairs Institute, 2019); Maria L. Lagutina, Russia’s Arctic Policy in the Twenty-first Century: National and International Dimensions (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019).

See Þingsályktun um stefnu Íslands í málefnum norðurslóða [Parliamentary Resolution on Iceland’s Policy on the Arctic], Þingtíðindi, May 19, 2011, accessed February 11, 2023, https://​www.​althingi.​is/​altext/​139/​s/​1148.​html; interviews with a former Icelandic minister, November 9, 13, 28, 2011.

Franklyn Griffiths was referring to expressions of Canadian Arctic nationalism, especially the rhetoric of Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper about the need for active presence in the Northwest Passage—the maritime route between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans—to exercise and maintain sovereignty over it. Iceland’s approach was similar, even if it was not presented in such overly nationalistic terms. See Griffiths, “Towards a Canadian Arctic Strategy,” Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (ZaöRV) 69 (2009): 579–624.

Össur Skarphéðinsson, Þingræða [Parliamentary speech], September 3, 2010, accessed February 9, 2024, Þingtíðindi, https://​www.​althingi.​is/​altext/​raeda/​138/​rad20100903T1113​57.​html.

Arctic Council, “Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic,” May 12, 2011, accessed January 12, 2024, https://​oaarchive.​arctic-council.​org/​items/​9c343a3f-cc4b-4e75-bfd3-4b318137f8a2; Arctic Council, “Agreement on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic,” May 15, 2013, accessed February 1, 2024, https://​oaarchive.​arctic-council.​org/​items/​ee4c9907-7270-41f6-b681-f797fc81659f; Arctic Council, “Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation,” May 11, 2017, accessed February 1, 2024, https://​oaarchive.​arctic-council.​org/​items/​9d1ecc0c-e82a-43b5-9a2f-28225bf183b9; see also Svein Vigeland Rottem, “A Note on the Arctic Council Agreement,” Ocean Development & International Law 46, no. 1 (2015): 50–59; Paul Arthur Berkmann, Alexander N. Vylegzhanin, and Oran R. Young, “Application and interpretation of the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation,” Moscow Journal of International Law 49, no. 3 (2017): 6–17.

See Valur Ingimundarson, “Managing a contested region: the Arctic Council and the politics of Arctic governance,” Polar Journal 4, no. 1 (2014): 183–198; see also Philip E. Steinberg and Klaus Dodds. “The Arctic Council after Kiruna,” Polar Record 51, no. 1 (2015): 108–110.

Interview with a former high-ranking Arctic official, February 19, 2024.

Interview with a high-ranking U.S. State Department official, June 30, 2014.

See Valur Ingimundarson, “A Fleeting or Permanent Military Presence?”

See, for example, Julienne Smith and Jerry Hendrix, Forgotten Waters: Minding the GIUK Gap (Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security, May 2017), accessed November 30, 2022, https://​www.​cnas.​org/​publications/​reports/​forgotten-waters.

See U.S. Department of State, Limits in the Seas, No. 112, United States Responses to Excessive National Maritime Claims (Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, 1992), 71–73; see also Christopher R. Rossi, “The Northern Sea Route and the Seaward Extension of Uti Possidetis (Juris),” Nordic Journal of International Law 83, no. 4 (2014): 476–508.

See, for example, A. Schneider, “Northern Sea Route: A Strategic Arctic Project of the Russian Federation,” Problems of Economic Transition 60, no. 1–3 (2018): 195–202; Jan Jakub Solski, “The Northern Sea Route in the 2020s: Development and Implementation of Relevant Law,” Arctic Review of Law and Politics 11 (2000): 383–410; Leonid Tymchenko, “The Northern Sea Route: Russian Management and Jurisdiction over Navigation in Arctic Seas,” in The Law of the Sea and Polar Maritime Delimitation and Jurisdiction, ed. Alex G. Oude Elferink and Donald R. Rothwell (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 277–81.

Address by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, May 6, 2018, accessed January 25, 2023, https://​www.​c-span.​org/​video/​?​460478-1/​secretary-state-pompeo-warns-russia-china-arctic-policy-address-finland.

See, for example, “‘Greenland Is Not for Sale’: Trump’s Talk of a Purchase Draws Derision,” New York Times, August 16, 2019, accessed November 30, 2022, https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2019/​08/​16/​world/​europe/​trump-greenland.​html.

See, for example, “No Joke: Trump Really Wants to Buy Greenland,” National Public Radio (NPR), August 19, 2019, accessed May 30, 2023, https://​www.​npr.​org/​2019/​08/​19/​752274659/​no-joke-trump-really-does-want-to-buy-greenland.

See Tillögur nefndar um endurskoðun á stefnu Íslands í málefnum norðurslóða [Proposals of a [Parliamentary] Committee on the Revision of Iceland’s Arctic Policy], March 8, 2021, accessed June 25, 2023, https://​www.​stjornarradid.​is/​library/​04-Raduneytin/​Utanrikisraduney​tid/​PDF-skjol/​Skilabréf%20​og%20​tillögur%20​nefndar%20​um%20​endurskoðun%20​norðurslóðastefn​u.​pdf.

On hedging, see John D. Ciorciari, “The variable effectiveness of hedging strategies,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 19, no. 3 (2019): 523–555; Ciorciari and Jürgen Haacke, “Hedging in international relations: an introduction,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 19, no. 3 (2019): 367–374; Haacke, “The concept of hedging and its application to Southeast Asia: a critique and a proposal for a modified conceptual and methodological framework,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 19, no. 3 (2019): 375–417; Peter Crompton, “Hedging in academic writing: some theoretical problems,” English for Specific Purposes 16, no. 4 (1997): 271–287; Alistair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross, eds. Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Alexander Korolev, “Shrinking room for hedging: system-unit dynamics and behavior of smaller powers,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 19. no. 3 (2019): 419–452; Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “How do weaker states hedge? Unpacking ASEAN States’ alignment behavior towards China,” Journal of Contemporary China 25, no. 100 (2016): 500–514; Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “Getting hedging right: a small state perspective,” China International Strategy Review no. 2 (2021): 300–310; Joshua Kurlantzik, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Randall L. Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In,” International Security 19, no. 1 (1994): 72–107; Brock Tessman, “System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu,” Security Studies 21, no. 2 (2012): 192–231; Øystein Tunsjø, Security and Profit in China’s Energy Policy: Hedging against Risk (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); Øystein Tunsjø, “U.S.-China Relations: From Unipolar Hedging to Bipolar Balancing,” in Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China: Power and Politics in East Asia, ed. Robert. S. Ross and Tunsjø (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 2017), 41–68; Rosemary Foot, “Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: accommodating and hedging,” International Affairs 82, no. 1 (2006): 77–94; Alexander Korolev, “Systemic balancing and regional hedging: China-Russia relations,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 9, no. 4 (2016): 375–397; Ann Marie Murphy, “Great Power Rivalries, Domestic Politics and Southeast Asian Foreign Policy: Exploring the Linkages,” Asian Security 13, no. 3 (2017): 165–182.

See Ciorciari and Haacke, “Hedging in international relations: an introduction,” 367–368.

Kuik, “Getting hedging right: a small state perspective,” 301.

Kuik, “Getting hedging right: a small state perspective,” 302.

Kuik, “Getting hedging right: a small state perspective,” 306.

See Korolev, “Shrinking room for hedging: system-unit dynamics and behavior of smaller powers,” 419–452.

On status-seeking, see Marina G. Duque, “Recognizing International Status: A Relational Approach,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 577–592; David Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009); T.V. Paul, Deborah Welch Larson, and William C. Wohlforth, eds., Status in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Benjamin De Carvalho and Iver Neumann, “Small states and status,” in Small state status seeking. Norway’s Quest for International Standing, ed. Neumann and De Carvalho (London: Routledge, 2015), 56–72; Rasmus Brun Pedersen, “Bandwagon for Status: Changing Patterns in Nordic States Status-seeking Strategies,” International Peacekeeping 25, no. 2 (2018): 217–241; Jonathan Renshon, Fighting for Status: Hierarchy and Conflict in World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017); William C. Wohlforth, Benjamin De Carvalho, Halvard Leira, and Iver Neumann, “Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking,” Review of International Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 526–546.

On Iceland’s Arctic policies, see Valur Ingimundarson, “Iceland as an Arctic State,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Arctic Policy and Politics, ed. Ken S. Coates and Carin Holroyd (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 251–265; Ingimundarson, “Framing the national interest: the political uses of the Arctic in Icelandic foreign and domestic policies,” Polar Journal 5, no. 1 (2015): 81–100; Ingimundarson and Klaus Dodds, “Territorial nationalism and Arctic geopolitics: Iceland as an Arctic coastal state,” Polar Journal 2, no. 1 (2012): 21–37; Ingimundarson, “Territorial Discourses and Identity Politics: Iceland’s Role in the Arctic,” in Arctic Security in an Age of Climate Change, ed. James Kraska (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 174–189; Ingimundarson, “Iceland’s Post-American Security Policy, Russian Geopolitics and the Arctic Question,” RUSI Journal 154, no. 4 (2009): 74–81; Alyson J.K. Bailes and Lassi Heininen, Strategy Papers on the Arctic or High North: a comparative study and analysis (Reykjavík: Centre for Small States, 2012); Alyson J.K. Bailes, Margrét Cela, Katla Kjartansdóttir, and Kristinn Schram, “Iceland: small but central,” in Perceptions and Strategies of Arcticness in Sub-Arctic Europe, ed. Toms Rostoks and Andris Sprūds (Riga: Latvian Institute of International Affairs, 2014), 75–97; Margrét Cela, “Iceland: A Small Arctic State Facing Big Arctic Changes,” The Yearbook of Polar Law Online 5, no. 1 (2013): 75–92; Margrét Cela and Pia Hansson, “A challenging chairmanship in turbulent times,” Polar Journal 11, no. 1 (2021): 43–56; on Icelandic military security in the Arctic, see Valur Ingimundarson, “Unarmed sovereignty versus foreign base rights: enforcing the US-Icelandic defense agreement 1951–2021”; Ingimundarson, “A Fleeting or Permanent Military Presence?” Ingimundarson, “The Revival of US Anti-Submarine Operations from Iceland”; Gustav Pétursson, “The Defence Relationship of Iceland and the United States and the Closure of the Keflavík Base”; Ingimundarson, The Rebellious Ally: Iceland, the United States, and the Politics of Empire; Page Wilson and Auður H. Egilsdóttir, “Small State, Big Impact? Iceland’s First National Security Policy,” in Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security, ed. Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, Marc Lantinga, and Horatio Sam-Aggrey (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020), 188–197; Pia Hansson and Guðbjörg Ríkey Th. Hauksdóttir, “Iceland and Arctic Security: US Dependency and the Search for an Arctic Identity,” in On Thin Ice? Perspectives on Arctic Security, ed. Duncan Depledge and P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Ontario: North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network (NAADSN), 2021), 163–171; on Icelandic soft security policies, see Ingimundarson and Halla Gunnarsdóttir. “The Icelandic Sea Areas and Activity Level up to 2025,” in Maritime activity in the High North—current and estimated level up to 2025, ed. Odd Jarl Borch et al. (Bodø: Nord University, 2016), 74–87; Borsch, Natalia Andreassen, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Valur Ingimundarson, and Uffe Jakobsen, “Navigation safety and risk assessment in the High North,” in Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation Proceedings of the International Conference on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, ed. Adam Weintritt (London: Francis & Taylor Group, 2017), 275–281.

See Valur Ingimundarson, “Framing the national interest: the political uses of the Arctic in Icelandic foreign and domestic policies.”

JEF, a British initiative launched in 2014, is a multinational defense framework, covering the Arctic, North Atlantic, and the Baltic Sea Region, with the participation of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

Interview with a high-level Icelandic defense official, February 23, 2024.

Interview with a high-ranking Icelandic official, April 12, 2023; interview with a high-ranking Arctic official February 6, 2024.